Dear Santa,

I need your help!

My three beautiful children sat down the other day to write their annual letters to you.  They had all manner of requests:  TV’s, iPads, Wii games, iTouch’s, my six year old asked for a mobile phone!

(Hey, kids!?!  There’s a pool in the backyard, a bucket of balls and a cricket bat in the shed and a footy oval across the road.  GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!!)

It’s Summer.  We’re in Australia.  There’s a hundred long white sandy beaches down the road.  We have a backyard,  a leafy neighbourhood and a corner store with an ice-cream freezer.  When did that stop being enough?

Is it because all their friends at school have these techno things and they feel deprived?  Is it a bit like when you give a child a bag of lollies but they can’t physically open the bag?  They need help to open it.  And they look at the bag for what seems like an eternity to them and the longer they look, the more they want to eat those lollies.  Their mouths are watering.  But they know they can’t eat the lollies because they can’t open the damn bag!!  If they were to write a letter to you at that moment, Santa, would they ask for a pair of scissors?  An iPad wouldn’t be at thetop of the list then would it?

I think some parents lack imagination.  Yesterday, a woman at the bakery told me “I’m getting all my kids TV’s for their bedrooms for Christmas this year.”  I nearly choked.  And I saw a family of five in a restaurant on the weekend, all three kids with iPads, the father with an iPad and the mother texting through the entire meal.  No body uttered a word to each other!

My friend was dining with her four children the other day and an elderly lady came up to her and told her how it warmed her heart watching this family chatting and laughing over dinner.  “What beautiful children you have” she said.  But shouldn’t that be the norm?  Why should it provoke a comment from a stranger?

So Santa, as much as I love my children and I want them to get whatever they want in life, it is precisely because I love them that I would like you to bring them an air hockey table.  Hours of fun.  Competitiveness.  Togetherness.  Standing and moving.  And they’re not expecting it.  So, low and behold, there’ll even be an element of surprise.  Remember Surprises?

Oh, and can you pop in a well sealed bag of lollies?  I’ve hidden the scissors.

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